Finding Your Confidence to Stand Out When You “Don’t Feel Good Enough”

*If you follow me on Facebook, you know the #HeidiHOWto is one of my dedicated weekly posts. By following that # you can easily trace back any of my posts written since I started in the online space*

It’s easy as a struggling entrepreneur to look at our competitors and start mimicking what they’re doing.- heck, I once did it myself.

Finding your voice takes time. It’s not something you can have a concrete plan going into entrepreneurship with. It comes with understanding your market, coaching calls and figuring out all the nitty gritty details of what works and doesn’t work for your business. The language of your market and clients might change and evolve over time and you might discover parts of your market you never knew before.

The best thing I can recommend to anyone seeking to truly find their voice and their confidence is to talk to your market. This can be done through a few techniques:

Market research calls

Free coaching calls

Interacting with them through social media comments and posts

The key piece of this puzzle is to KNOW the language they speak. Take notes and actually USE that language. The more you start to understand your client and market, the more confident you become in being able to speak to them.

Here’s a brief overview of one exercise I do with my clients to help them gain their voice.

It requires patience and honestly. I’m not judging your answers and you don’t have to share them with anybody but yourself.

What are your interests? Passions? Likes?

What makes you warm and fuzzy inside?

What do you stand for? What are your core values?

What stories, memories, experiences do you have?

What are some phrases and words that you use?

Everything you just listed are the precise things of what set you apart from everyone else. Just like a snowflake – no two are alike. We may all offer similar packages and services but where we all differ is where we came from, what we went through and who we are today.

Stop overthinking it. Stop picking apart every word you write and trying to mimic the format and style of everyone else’s posts. You are MORE than good enough. If you write from your heart you WILL stand out because people can sense raw and honest emotion and experience. Lots of likes don’t always equal a successful person. I know people who have thousands of FB page likes but their business is struggling and then there are people who receive maybe 2-3 likes and are making 6-7 figures. Be true to yourself and that will make you stand out more than anything else. 💛

It will absolutely feel awkward at first but consistency is key! Do you think bloggers, famous authors, painters, musicians were perfect from day one? Absolutely not. They developed and perfected their craft over time – it took A LOT of failing forward to figure out what worked and what didn’t.

You might be the type of person who curses a lot and that’s fine! I have no judgments against anyone who curses. I do however cringe when people are cursing to fit in. Not because the language itself repulses me but because I can sense how inauthentic it is. And you won’t attract your ideal client either – it’s the equivalent of getting excited to see a movie because the preview for it was captivating.. You purchase the ticket, the popcorn, the super-sized soda and 10 minutes in, you realize this wasn’t at all anything like the previews made it… but it’s too late. You can’t return your ticket stub and get your money back, so you stick it out completely miserable not even putting in the effort to connect with any part of it.

Don’t be like a failed movie with the only thing that’s good about it are the false previews. Be yourself from the start.

Just because people aren’t engaging with your posts doesn’t mean they’re not reading them. Think of the online space like your first day of work. You can’t go in expecting for everyone to love you right from day one. They have to warm up to you and see that you’re committed to the team. There are STILL days I don’t receive ANY engagement but months later I’ll receive a random like or a Facebook message about how the post really spoke to them.

I want you to truly give the exercise a try. The more honest you are, the more you’ll discover about yourself. You’ll be able to pinpoint your areas of uniqueness and use them to stand out from the crowd.

I’d love to hear how this exercise worked out for you! Drop a comment below or connect with me on social media at facebook.com/heidilynneco If this post spoke to you, I personally invite you to join my private Facebook group. I’ve brought together women from various backgrounds and industries to support, encourage and empower one another as we push forward to achieve our dreams. Every day we are sharing new content with one another. I’d hate for you to miss out! Check it out: facebook.com/brilliantbusinesswomen